It has previously been proposed--see German disclosure document DT-OS No. 25 03 679, to which U.S. patent application Ser. No. 648,783, filed Jan. 13, 1976, Meier et al, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,085,403, and assigned to the assignee of the present application corresponds, to provide a remote control system in which a central station is connected to a ring bus having a power line or bus, a clock line, or bus, a control line, or bus, and a reply line or bus. To avoid needless repetition, the disclosure of the aforementioned published German disclosure document, and of the corresponding U.S. patent application is hereby incorporated by reference. Briefly, the system of that application uses a central station to send out pulses during a period of time forming a selection cycle on the clockline; synchronously therewith, pulses are sent out on the command bus which pulses on the command bus and on the clock bus are decoded by the respective receivers. Upon synchronism of a pulse on the command line and on the clock line, and decoded by a specific receiver responsive to such synchronism, a load is commanded to carry out a switching function by the specific receiver. Synchronously with the carrying out of the commanded switching function, an acknowledgement signal is generated and applied to the reply bus so that, in the receiver, all within the period of one clock pulse, a selection is effected and, simultaneously, an acknowledgement is received which can be indicated showing that the commanded switching function has been carried out.
The selection cycles are separated from each other by control signals which, preferably, appear on the clock line and may be formed by a timing interval, that is, a pause in pulses on the clock line or, as described in cross referenced application Ser. No. 835,180, filed Sept. 20, 1977, Weckenmann and Haubner may be formed by a pulse train of a predetermined number of pulses on the control bus.
Remote control systems of this kind have been found to work very well in pilot installations so that practical application of such systems, particularly to command switching functions in components of automotive vehicles can be realized the reby.